Live from practice

Will have quotes soon from Prust, Dubinsky, Lundqvist, Drury and Tortorella.

You’ve heard by now that Mats Zuccarello is up from Connecticut and Tortorella said that the reality that the game could come down to a shootout is a consideration in having him up. Drury skated, but he and Tortorella were very vague about whether there’s a chance he could play tomorrow. Marc Staal was given a maintenance day off.

Saw the Captain here today — you know THE Captain. He wasn’t offering any guarantees.

Quotes to follow.

John Tortorella:

I asked if the experience of Game 82 last year could be of any help tomorrow:

“No. No. We need to focus on what we need to do for one game tomorrow and not worry about what happened before, during this season, not worry about what happened last season. It’s just focusing on what we need to do tomorrow.”

On Zuccarello and the shootout:

“Yeah, it has to come into our thinking. It’s crazy, but it has to come into our thinking. But he’ll come up and see what happens.”

Any chance of Drury playing:

“No. No. There’s no timetable there. Again, I’m not even sure what the lineup’s going to be. So we’ll make that decision tomorrow.”

On the short memory his team has had:

“It’s got to be really short. We play at 12:30 tomorrow. Listen, this team has bounced back from clunkers that we’ve played, from injuries, from a lot of different things this year. And we have full trust that we will be ready to play. Again, like I said, we lose control as far as losing last night. But you wake up today, you go to work and you need to look what’s ahead of you here. They’ve bounced back in a lot of different situations this year. They’ll do it tomorrow.”

“We had our process today to get ready for tomorrow. I feel very comfortable with the club and their mindset.”

On the youthful ignorance being beneficial:

“Ignorance and not thinking is very good for hockey players. Really, it’s true. If you’re thinking too much you get paralyzed. It’s a loose group, it’s been a confident group, it’s a good group, so we’ll be ready to play tomorrow.”

I asked if he’ll watch any games tonight:

“No, but I’ll check a few scores. I’m not watching any of that (cooke). I’m sure I’ll check a few scores, I’ll be honest with you there. You have to now. But, again, the biggest focus is, we turn around pretty quickly here and I think that’s a good thing for our club — get ready to play, play a 12:30 game, get at it and see where we go.”

They played a shinny game at center ice the end of practice, and I asked if that was to just keep it loose.

“Yeah, we’ve been trying to … again, we’re a good hockey team. We’ve had a really good year. We have 43 wins. In the past five or six weeks, we’ve gone into San Jose and beaten them. We’ve gone into Pittsburgh, they opened the door with some undiscipline, we beat them. We’ve beaten Boston twice. We’ve beaten Philly twice. We’ve played some clunkers, but we’re a good hockey club. It’s not about correcting out in practice right now. It’s not about (video) tape work. It’s about how you feel about yourself as a player and as a group. And again, I am confident that these guys will recapture themselves, will feel good about themselves and play a really good game tomorrow.”

On remembering how it felt to be eliminated in Game 82 last year and whether it had an effect on this year’s team:

“I don’t think so. You’d have to ask the individuals. This is a different club. I think we have some different personnel. I think this club had a mindset. They did their work in the summer and that really propelled us to have a really good foundation to how we were going to play. I think we’ve developed an identity, so I just think it’s apples and oranges. I think this is a different club this year.”

Is it better prepared to play a game like this?

“I think this is a better team. I think it’s a better team mentally. I think it’s a better team, togetherness. You guys can write what you want. I think it’s a pretty damn good club and we’re going to try to find a way tomorrow.”

just to make it clear.. i am definitely not on “Fire Torts” bandwagon…yet.

He’s a good coach.. he was true to his words and played the youth all season long…and he makes the players play hard (almost) every night… but, TWO straight years of not making it in… i don’t know…how many more do we give him before we ask for his head?

and another thing… is Nashville roster that much better than the Rangers? They play in a much stronger conference and in a much tougher Central Division with Wings and Hawks and Blues…

I’m not putting the blame on Torts at all, if they don’t make the playoffs.

We all know this team isn’t a great team. They’re young, inexperienced, and probably have no business even making the playoffs. The “fans” have their hopes way to high, and are not being realistic. This team, with this roster, should probably be sitting in 9th or 10th place.

Torts has done a great job keeping them in the race.

If they can’t make the playoffs after four years, then you have an argument. But, it’s two years.

We all know who should be the one to get the “Trump treatment”, but Jimmy-Boy Dolan’s man-crush on Sather won’t allow him to fire Slats so Tortsa might have to be offered up as the scapegoat much like Low, Trottier and Renney were.

So, I did some real soul searching, and I just don’t think, as much as I want to, I can get drunk before/at tomorrow’s game. Normally for a weekend game/final game of the season/playoff/playoffs on the line game, I’d pregame hard, but I just don’t think that I can do it tomorrow. Too early.

If I pregame in my apartment, we’re talking drinking at 11 AM. If I bring something to drink on the train, then I’m the hobo that’s brown bagging it before noon. And I’m not getting drunk for $9 a beer at the game, especially with the lines now that they’ve shut down so many of the concession stands.

The bottom line is that this team, as it stands, is inconsistent … and therefore mediocre.

You can’t have a guy like Gaborik score 20 goals (in concentration) and expect the club to be anything but average. If he a) scores 35+ and b) staggers his goals, then this team is likely is solidly in 6th place.

And can you imagine if Lundqvist hadn’t played lights out or had gotten injured? Then we would be battling for 10th place.

I agree that our effort throughout the year has covered up the lack of talent and lack of speed. We have some slow guys out there – and that molasses-ness becomes more evident as the season wears on. We also can’t score (apart from 2-3 guys).

Saying all that, I will rule this season unsuccessful if we don’t make the playoffs. Teams are supposed to evolve, etc, but get better as time goes on. We missed the playoffs last year (sad, but understandable) … we should NOT miss it this year, particularly as we had control of our destiny.

let me explain about Nashville. they have played the same way for several years now, because Trotz is given time to implement his system, so they are already in sync with playing that gritty style and relying on their goalie and top D pair, with little offense

the only way for the Rangers to get to that consistency is to continue this system for several years too. so dumping Torts now would be a dumb mistake. it would mean starting all over and possibly going back to the “forget the kids, the kids sit, and the overpaid vets play” days.